Ex Navs

[goudie]

What careers do Ex-Navs generally go for? No vested interest, just curious how they adapt after doing such a specialised job which has no obvious equivalent in civilian life.

[zero/zero]

Da da da da da... I'm loving it!

[Biggus]

They do the same as ex-submariners and ex-astronauts......

[goudie]

Well I suppose it's difficult for them too and also a host of other military specialists. I mention Navs because I did know quite a few and have often wondered how they faired after leaving the RAF

[N Joe]

Did my resettlement with a tank commander - not much call for those in civvy street either. He was starting his own brewery.

N Joe

[wokkameister]

OK, If noone else is going to do it, I'll do it!

What do Navs do when they leave?

Big Mac and Fries please!

WM

[kiwi chick]

OK post number two wasn't clear until you said that... ;)


I had a lobotomy and became a pilot :D :D :D

I was once told by an Air Force man that Navigators are smarter than Pilots - but they don't tell the Pilots that... LOL!!

[kiwi chick]

Haha!! Once I clicked, I thought it was very clever ! :ok:

[kiwi chick]

(I need to know whether that was at all serious or not so I know how to answer that!!)

;)

(scurrying back to the kitchen...)

[pr00ne]

Question that always annoyed navs; (of the toom variety, many of us 2 winged master race were ex Hunter or frightning in the early days)

I have two thousand hours without a Nav, how many do you have without a pilot?

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

For once Proone posts something I applaud :D

[vecvechookattack]

Don't most of them go and fly for the airlines?

[tarbaby]

I thought they went to the ground schools to teach pilots what navigators knew all the time.
Spend my time now trying to find out one of the great mysteries of life - how did that hook come about?

[reynoldsno1]

I am not an ex-navigator - I still put navigator down as my occupation on forms what ask you that. I have been heavily involved in both rotary and fixed wing operations (taught myself helicopter performance, which makes your head hurt and comes across as bad science fiction), airfield operations, GPS mapping, approach procedure design, airspace design and all sorts of obscure subjects that require consulting on.... :8

[Pontius Navigator]

Head the Gulf Veterans Branch of the RBL
Write books.
Become civil servants.
Know where they are going.

And I am with Reynolds. I love the reminder posted a few fays ago - qualified in air navigation. You cannot become unqualified, like a doctor. You can lose currency but even so, in the right place the skills may still be used.

[Chris Kebab]

Presuming your question is a serious one and not a troll.
Still mates with many “ex navs” who I flew with who were exceedingly competent guys. I am, and always was, rather irked by the pompous “I’m better than you because I fly in a different seat” line taken by a few rather shallow (and normally predictable) individuals.
Not a single one of the guys I know has left the mob and bombed out employment wise. More than a couple sorted out licences (one is now a chief training capt), many moved into the defence contractor industry in a wide range of roles (Warton employ several navs for their fleet). Guys who did the Aerosystems course seem to pop up in many quite interesting areas. Some have moved into the UAV industry, I know of some who are with the CAA and of a couple who are MoD civvies.
In fact, thinking about it, they seem to move into a far more diverse range of jobs than the average pilot does and are probably doing better than I will!
But hey why spoil the myth!:)

[goudie]

Thank you KEBAB you've answered my (serious) question.

[Maxibon]

For what its worth, I was grounded medically, left, did a degree in rural estate management, managed a rural estate, got chartered as a surveyor, went into the army, left and now work as a surveyor again. I still get a hankering to fly but to be honest, the army was in many ways more rewarding due to the management of men. Property pays the bills and keeps Mrs Maxibon in high quality kitchen appliances and utensils whilst the two boys are down for a decent schooling.

[ProfessionalStudent]

What's the difference between a 1000lb bomb and a navigator?

Not all 1000lb-ers are retarded...:}

And before you say anything, I was one once... (no, not a 1000lb-er!)

[windriver]

wokkameister and zero/zero have correctly identified a good career route for ex navs and should consider the field of careers advice as they have demonstrated some shrewd judgement here.

As they have implied McDonalds is a world class company and the ex nav's experience and management skills would nicely match those required to manage and develop a highly lucrative franchise(s).

[Pontius Navigator]

PS, and still are? no, not a nagigator :}






PS, that was a typo but it looks better

[Lamenting Navigator]

All the Navs I know have desks in offices, poor so and sos.

[FHA]

Since leaving the service, I've met quite a few ex-navs piloting Boeing and Airbus's finest. They're doing just fine thank you very much.:)

[K.Whyjelly]

Isn't there an ex-nav out there who is doing very well thank you out of being the media's point of reference for all things Iraqi/aviation/military??

Probably pockets a lot more cash than I do for doing a lot less than I do as well :hmm:

[Mal Drop]

I have two thousand hours without a Nav, how many do you have without a pilot?

Usually my answer to that question was "not nearly enough..."

Back on topic, I moved into the world of consultancy. For a Nav it's basically money for old rope. You spend your time dealing with a lot of fragile egos and keeping the whole shebang moving in the direction that you want it to. The hours are better, no secondary duties and to be honest, most civvies are amazed by our skills at making broken things work.

[H Peacock]

Never realy understood this banter about ex-navs, but if I were involved in pilot recruitment I would be keen to look at employing ex-RAF navs as pilots. Apart from the handling, they are usually good at operating complex sytems and (obviously) working in a crew environment (CRM). On the whole I don't think they should need too much trg to be able to handle the aircraft safely.

I know a lot of navs who fly or have flown, and they are mostly proficient. Wouldn't want to upset the single-seat FJ guys, but I would be more interested in recruiting an ex-nav instead!

:)

[Widger]

Know where they are going........yes but......only if they rotate the A-Z in the direction they are travelling!:E:E:E

[ZH875]

Know where they are going........yes but......only if they rotate the A-Z in the direction they are travelling!:E:E:E


So how come we have navigatrixes when they can't read maps?

[Pontius Navigator]

Know where they are going........yes but......only if they rotate the A-Z in the direction they are travelling!:E:E:E

Widger it was the pilots who rotated the maps. Real navigators could navigate up, down, left, right and around coffee cups. We could also use different coloured pens, write a record of what happened so that it was available at the debrief and not when the analyists got in to read the tapes.

[spoff]

They plaster the walls of the house with pictures of fighters and pretend to their neighbours that they were fighter pilots.......

:=:=

[goudie]

It was inevitable I suppose that this thread would become a 'back seat v. front seat' forum, however Spoff, that last remark was sooooo immature. Shame on you!

[Occasional Aviator]

I'm always a bit confused by this question - surely the answer is "exactly the same as pilots who leave and don't fly" - quite a few of those around too.

[Pontius Navigator]

No Matt, we graduated from quill pens to the modern ink filled plastic tipped pen. It does not fade and gives a readily understood pictorial representation of the mission.

The crayons that you no doubt have yet to use are far too crude.

[Biggus]

When I went through Nav training at Finningley, many years ago, proudly displayed on a wall in the nav school was the nav log as written by a 617 Sqn nav on the night of the Dams Raid. I can't remember whether it was actually Gibsons nav or not.

There was a small card under it describing it, and with the caption of something like...'an example of logging under pressure'.

I'm not sure if it made it to Cranwell when Finningley closed!

From what I can remember it wasn't written in crayon.

[jonesthepilot]

The Navs on the Squadrons I served on were hard nosed determined idividuals. They knew there was no future in civvy street so they pushed for the career option. Good luck to them, if pushing paper around floats your boat and keeps a pilot on the cockpit, then jolly good oh!

[Daft Wader]

Quite a lot of them help some us guys pass pesky exams .....

Eternally grateful here

Daft Wader

:ok:

[Chris Kebab]

As a slight aside I also know four (ex) RAF pilots who have been banged up.

Plus one Rock,

Plus one Educator (long story),

But no Navs!


...maybe I just move in dodgy circles..

[Pontius Navigator]

CK,

I am afraid navs are not quite as white as thed riven snow. The former mess manager at what is now appropriately Lindhome prison was guilty of embezzlement.

[PARALLEL TRACK]

Jones The Pilot

Were you the jtp who liked to do your aeros sequence for the back seaters?

Regards

//trk

[Exnomad]

I completed a National Service nav course after failing an airframe drivers course.
Afterwards I found that if I had passed the drivers course the possible directions were Meteor or Shackleton, and having tried to fly an Oxford rather than a Harvard, Shackelton was the more probable. I did not fancy being a Nav in a Shack or in a Meteor NF11 either
I knew someone who did 20 hour patrols in a Shack, and he was never the same again. So I went back to civvy and spent the next 25 years designing aircraft equipment.

[Jack Aubrey]

15 years in. Read a degree in engineering. Taught in Uni. Did some consultancy. Retired at 50.

Now flying model aeroplanes and helicopters and spending a lot of time with my beautiful wife and wonderful children.

Where did it all start going so horribly wrong?

[Ayla]

They are highly sort after by flight training schools at the moment, as the number of Navs leaving the RAF diminishes!

[RubiC Cube]

Isn't there an ex-nav out there who is doing very well thank you out of being the media's point of reference for all things Iraqi/aviation/military??

Probably pockets a lot more cash than I do for doing a lot less than I do as well

I caught this one on Talksport at midnight last Friday hosting his own show and talking, appropriately enough, about useless celebrities being on TV shows.

[RimBim]

:sad:I know two have gone into UK defence companies working on RAF projects and are able to use their old chums/contacts in the FJ sqns, can talk a/crew talk and therefore be a useful conduit and liaison between industry and the 'user'.
They have done pretty well in the industry and also get the chance to chew the fat with their old mockers.
They also know whether to get jam donuts rather than apple.
win/win sitn.